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HINDRAF is disappointed with the speech of His Royal Highness the Sultan of Johor at a reception with the Indian community in Johor last week.

The staronline reported and quoted the Sultan as saying the following:

1) "Race and religion are sensitive issues and I will not allow any party that wants to create trouble that threatens the unity of my people,"

2) The Ruler singled out Hindraf as the group out to create trouble in the country by raising sensitive issues in trying to garner the support from the Indian community.

3) Sultan Ibrahim added that the group did not receive the majority support of the Indian community and its main aspiration was politically motivated.

4) "I urged my subjects not to be influenced by such groups as it may threatened the unity that have bind all of us together as Bangsa Johor," he said.

HINDRAF is of the opinion the Sultan have been misled and misinformed by his advisers who have obviously ill advised His Royal Highness on the role played by HINDRAF in advocating human rights issues affecting the Indian community in Malaysia.

Such wrong and ill advice may have created a negative perception in the mindset of the Sultan against the true struggle and principles of HINDRAF. Otherwise we see no reason why would the Sultan want to interfere in the legitimate human rights issues and the political solution to the long standing problems plaguing the Indian community championed by HINDRAF.

We wish to state in clear terms the Sultan was wrong to say HINDRAF was a group to create trouble by raising sensitive issues in the country.

More than 100,000 Indians would not have spilled into the streets of Kuala Lumpur in 2007 had it not been for the oppression and suppression of the Malaysian Government against the minority Indian community. Race and religion are equally sensitive to the Malaysian Indians.

800,000 estate workers have been displaced from the plantations they toiled for 4-5 generations, almost 300,000 Indians are still stateless, racial discrimination in job, education and business opportunities, the exclusion of Indians in the mainstream development of the country, demolitions of temples that have existed before merdeka years and the landless Indian community are the major problems created by the systematic discrimination in our country.

These oppression and marginalization have resulted in the massive show of protest against the government in 2007.

The Prime Minister Dato Sri Najib himself in April 2013 openly and publicly apologized to the Indian community for the Government’s neglect of the Indians over the last 40 years and promised to rectify the historical wrongs. We would not have been engaged by the Government if we were such a group portrayed to the Sultan.

The PM even appointed HINDRAF into the Government. However to our disappointments the PM did not keep to his words and hence the need to leave the Government and continue our human rights advocacy work.

HINDRAF would be sending our previous Human Rights reports, various representations made on behalf of the Indian community to the United Nations and International human rights organizations to the Johor palace for the Sultan’s attention.

We hope with those documents the Sultan would be able to assess himself the level of oppression and sufferings the Malaysian Indian community continue to endure all these years.

With those details we hope His Royal Highness would in turn assist us in advising the Federal Government to honour its MOU with Hindraf which was meant to find permanent and comprehensive solutions to the long standing problems faced by Indians in Malaysia.